Copper steady as investors await G20 meeting result

LONDON — Copper prices steadied on Friday ahead of a meeting of global leaders at the G20 summit, where a long-standing trade dispute between China and the United States was expected to take center stage.

Tit-for-tat trade tariffs have rattled global markets and sapped demand for base metals, in some cases overriding supportive factors such as falling stocks.

“The market is, to a great extent, discounting the chance of a breakthrough in talks between the US and China over the weekend,” Commerzbank’s head of commodities research Eugen Weinberg said on Friday, adding that Chinese data added to the general lackluster performance of metals on Friday.

China’s official Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to a 2016 low of 50 in November, missing market expectations and down from 50.2 in October.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) closed 0.2% down at $6,198 a ton, barely changed on the week.

Aluminum finished 0.9% up at $1,958.

US President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto signed a new trade agreement on Friday known as the United States-MexicoCanada Agreement.

Aluminum Corp. of China is cutting 470,000 tons of annual output, it said on Friday as Chinese aluminum prices sank to a two-year low.

Norwegian metals company Norsk Hydro expects global primary aluminum demand growth to slow next year and says it is being hit hard by a production slowdown at a key alumina plant in Brazil.

Falling stocks pushed the premium for cash zinc over the three month price to $101 a ton, its highest since 1998.

Inventories of zinc in LMEmonitored warehouses are close to a 10-year low of 88,600 tons. In warehouses monitored by ShFE, zinc stocks fell 25% from last Friday to 26,779 tons

Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, said mine output fell 3% in the first nine months of the year as ore grades fell sharply.

The US is moving to moderate its steel trade tariffs but countries in Europe and beyond are wary of reducing protection for their steelmakers while US-China trade tensions prevail.

Among other industrial metals, zinc ended at a one-week high of $2,542 a ton up 2.9%, while lead finished 2.1% up at $1,970. Tin fell 0.7% to $18,400 and nickel gained 1.3% to $11,200.